The use of credit cards, debit cards, stored values cards, electronic wallets, and other means of payment relying on payment account numbers as opposed to cash is ever-increasing among consumers. In some contexts, the proliferation of paperless payment transactions is becoming a preferred method of conducting many types of payment transactions, including small purchase amount transactions as well as larger purchases. The convenience of paperless payment transactions is attractive to many account holders.
Proximity payment devices (otherwise referred to herein as contactless payment cards or devices), such as the PayPass® payment device issued pursuant to standards developed by MasterCard International Incorporated, are becoming more widely used. PayPass® proximity payment devices (as well as a number of other proximity payment device schemes) follow standards, such as ISO standards and the EMV standards (available at www.emvco.com). The EMV standards set forth a security infrastructure in which payment device issuers create secure keys that are used to uniquely identify payment devices issued by them.
In a number of contexts, a proximity payment device may be implemented in a mobile device, such as, for example, a mobile telephone. As such, a payment account issuer may traditionally have a need to deploy an account number to the mobile device of the payment account number user (e.g., a credit card cardholder) so that the user may use the payment account number in a payment transaction. Deploying a payment account number to a mobile device in a timely, efficient, and secure manner may require great effort on the issuer's part.